


After the fire

by GreenPhoenix



Series: Fire within [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-07 03:29:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12832365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenPhoenix/pseuds/GreenPhoenix
Summary: Gyrich tries to build a new life.





	After the fire

The sun bore down on his head. At this time of day it was best to stay in his cave, his home. He went inside. From the plane above he could see Belvedere shine in the sun. Three times a day he would watch his former home. Where she remained, his beloved. She had banished him here, two years ago. Here he remained, pondering his crimes against her.  
*

Once he was a magician at the king’s court, now he was a hermit at the edge of the desert. Once every week one of the travelers came by and had a brief talk. Then occasionally he aided some wayfaring stranger who had become sunstricken. They called him holy man. Ah, the irony. Few holy men had murdered their lovers as he had. Two years ago he killed Roxana. Yet he barely thought of her, could not even remember her face. He could remember Joanna all too clearly. Every day he saw her features before him painted in the sky or etched in the stars.  
*

 

“Hello holy man” It was Berim, the traveler who had come by again. “Hello yourself”  
Berim smiled at Gyrich. He had a bag over his shoulder. No doubt full of other people’s belongings.   
“I’ve got many strange and beautiful things here” said Berim.  
“Not interested”  
“You never are. I don’t see why you persist in living here when you could..”  
“When I could what?”  
“Help me with my business”  
“You know I wont.”   
“Can’t blame me for asking” Berim said. Gyrich laughed. Berim was good, if immoral company. And who was he to pass judgement on others.  
*

Joanna lay in Paul’s bed. His hair spilled over the pillow. The moonlight colored it almost white. As ever, she’d enjoyed seeing him this night. She watched his face, the smooth surfaces she knew so well. In sleep he looked calm. Awake he was anything but.  
She got out of bed and watched the sky. Why did she do this every night? Why did she find her thoughts wandering out of the city, glorious city and into the stark and formless desert? She was free of him. Yet, perhaps by casting a spell on him, she’d also cursed herself. 

*  
By day Paul was never still. He could hardly afford too since he worked as a snake charmer. Each day he let his beloved cobra move in intricate coils. Joanna watched and smiled. Today he talked to Berim, a friend of his. She heard snatches of conversation.  
“So I tell him holy man come on you’d make a great thief. And he said no that he was a great murderer. He’s so funny”  
Joanna flinched. She knew whom he meant. The sun bore down on her head and she hid in the shade, her breath coming in small gasps.  
*  
The not so holy man sat watching Belvedere. She knows where I am, he thought. She still haunts me. A lizard sliding across his leg disturbed his reverie. “Dinner” he thought and killed it swiftly with a stone. He wondered what Elzim made of his disappearance. Perhaps nothing. He had probably been replaced a week after he left.  
*

Berim and Paul were laughing about something. Joanna had not heard what they were talking about. Though in a crowd she felt so far from everything. As if nothing she saw was real. “If love is hate backward do I now love him?” she thought. “I hated him for long, then forgot and now..” The bright sunshine stung her eyes. She felt an aversion to what ought to have been her element. She saw Berim’s fingers slide into a rich man’s garment. A sudden vision told her he’d be caught. Before she could tell him the man discovered what Berim was doing and he ordered his men to catch the fleeing Berim.   
A distraction would be most apt. She focused on the bright, unclouded sky. Within minutes it was raining heavily. Joanna saw with a pleased smile that the rich man’s servants had been distracted. The rain she could summon, but not stop. She ran towards an inn. Paul was already gone.

*

Gyrich froze in his cave. The rainstorm was unexpected and unnatural. She had summoned it then, out of sadness or need. He wished he could make it stop. Then he noticed someone crawling into his cave. It was a slight woman with dark hair. A traveler.  
When she noticed him she froze. “It’s alright” he said. “Who are you?” she didn’t answer at first.  
Then she said:”Irina. My brother-Berim-told me to find some holy man and wait for his return”  
“Looks like you found him. “  
“Oh I’m so glad”   
“Why did you leave the other travelers?”  
“An arranged marriage. Berim said he’d help escape from it”’  
“I’m sure he will help you” Gyrich said.  
Irina smiled a little.  
*

But Berim would never come. Despite the storm, the rich man’s servants had found him and killed him. It was illegal of course, to kill someone. But no one would miss a traveler. Paul had heard of his friend’s death and was shaken. He, though not a traveler, had lived a similar life. Joanna sighed as she offered a prayer to the goddess for Berim’s soul. She sat in the temple and watched the placid face of the goddess. She sang a song her mother had taught her.   
“You carry me over the blackest waters  
The darkest deep, I am alive in you even though  
the world has moved on without me  
Please do not turn your face from me now”  
When she had finished her song she felt her eyes moisten. Outside rain fell.

Days had passed with no word from Berim. Irina was worried. Her brother was a man who stood by his word. Something must have happened to him. The holy man scared her.  
He smelled like something that had been burned. He looked at the city whenever he could. Sometimes he’d watch it for hours. He barely spoke to her. 

Gyrich woke and found Irina gone. He knew she must have left to look for Berim. He cursed. He could not go there to find her. But she was there too, his beloved, spirit of the fire that had burned him. She would burn him again surely. How he wanted that fire. He got up and started walking.

Irina felt strangely at home in Belvedere. She wasn’t used to its crowded streets but they felt familiar. She thought she remembered where Berim would have gone from his descriptions of the place to her. She walked to an inn and there she found Paul. “Hello” she ventured, not sure if he knew her from an encounter five years ago. “I’m sorry”  
“Sorry for what?”   
“Then you don’t know” he told her of Berim’s fate and saw her face crack with sorrow. He took her hand.  
*

Irina came to live with Paul. Just until they could find a place for her where it was safe Paul told Joanna. But she already knew hat would come after. How pity would become sympathy and then love. Paul had been distant ever since her captivity. His love had become unlove. He seemed afraid of what she had become in order to save herself.

*

He did not find Irina in Belvedere. He learned of Berim’s fate from a trader he had once known. Strange to think he was still remembered. This was a fickle town after all. His place at the court had been taken by a man capable of the usual lies an flattery. He’d do well thought Gyrich without bitterness. He had not come here to find Irina after all. It was his destiny to find Joanna.  
*

He went to the bazaar one cool evening. There he saw the usual suspects plying their trades. And there she was. Her red hair fell down her back like a river of darkness. Her face was stony as she saw him. “You came” she said.  
“I had to..Irina..”  
“Is safe. You are not”  
“I know. Do what you must”  
“Yes. Are you that fond of pain?” He didn’t answer that. She bared her teeth in a smile of sheer cruelty. Joanna took him by the hand and led him to a place of worship. It was devoted to her goddess. A white house, empty now of all worshippers and priests.   
There were red flowers on the floor, sacrifices to the goddess. The pale light of the moon came in though a window in the ceiling. Joanna touched his forehead with unexpected gentleness. The anger she felt was gone. Perhaps the goddess guided her. He lay down on the floor and felt her fingers move over his head. She was singing softly an old prayer. He felt an intense pain building slowly in his bones. Flames moved over him, as they had before. She barely moved, concentrated on this rite, this purgatory of fire.   
In old times priestesses would perform similar rites to blasphemers. This custom was rarely practiced now. She had revived it for him. “I’m done,” she said. “That is nothing compared to what you did to me”  
“And to Roxana”  
“ No. You can never repay her. But you’ve changed.”  
“Not really..I still..You’re still..”  
“Yes. If only you’d tried to talk to me instead of capturing me..”  
“I wish I had. But I was..used to getting what I wanted.”  
Then they were silent. Her rage was burning away. Joanna looked into his eyes and saw a reflection of what something she thought she had forgotten. She leant forward and kissed him. He tasted of sand. He could still see in her what he saw then, but it no longer terrified him. He could see he could never possess it, only accept it as a loan. He touched her white neck with fingers callused by desert sand. Paul was forgotten, just as he had forgotten Joanna. They lay down on the cold floor, among the flowers. And the fire consumed them both. Its flames were warm now, not tearing. And the night as long as a thousand nights.  
*

In the cold light of morning he found himself alone. The scent of her remained. But she was gone just as he had known she would be. He got up slowly. He knew he must leave the city. The rest of his life lay ahead of him like a desert, vast endless plains of longing.


End file.
